Page images
PDF
EPUB

thirty-second chapter. Remember that it is not sufficient to be almost a Christian. You must be a Christian altogether. With purpose of heart therefore give yourselves up to the Lord as faithful servants to obey him wholly, and without reserve.

sins;

But there are some who follow not the Lord at all, but follow the multitude to do evil. Oh! consider the end of your way. It is ruin, destruction, and death; death not only of the body, but of the soul. If you live with the world, you must perish with the world; you must die in your you must have no heaven, no rest, no future happiness and glory; you must die under the wrath of God, and be consigned for ever to unutterable wretchedness and despair. The carcases of those who died in the wilderness are but a faint representation of those souls which shall lie for ever in hell; and such must be the final condition of those who will not be the servants of God. Oh! let me warn you to flee from the wrath to come. Acknowledge the duty which you owe to God. Seek pardon with him, through his Son, for

all your past neglect and disobedience. Repent and be converted to God. Pray for his converting grace, that you may become new creatures. Yield yourselves unto God, as those that are made alive from the dead, and henceforward follow him fully. So you will have a portion with Caleb and Joshua and all the saints of the most high, and reign with them in the land of promise for ever. Otherwise you will die in your sins, and never see the kingdom of God. Continuing in the world, you will perish with the world; for the world is appointed to destruction. Remaining of the same spirit with the men of the world, with them must your present and final portion be. May the Lord in mercy bring you to a better mind, and give you a full determination of soul for himself and his service.

SERMON XXV.

THE ISRAELITES DEFEATED.

NUMBERS XIV. 41.

And Moses said, Wherefore now do ye transgress the commandment of the Lord? But it shall not prosper.

MAN is naturally a self-sufficient and selfwilled being; what he wishes to do, he will do; what is right in his own eyes, he will have to be right, and even the authority of God, and much more the authority of man, is not sufficient to secure his obedience, when he chooses to think that any thing ought to be otherwise: he will judge for himself, and act for himself, however he may thereby transgress the law, whether human or divine, questioning the justice or wisdom of the law, and presuming to think that he knows better what ought to be enjoined, than the wisest of

lawgivers or even the omniscient God himself.

We have a striking instance of this perverseness and obstinacy of the human mind in the history which now comes before us. We have seen that the Israelites had distrusted the promise and disobeyed the command of God, by not going forward to take possession of the land of Canaan. They had exercised their own judgment upon the case, and because the inhabitants were powerful in body, and their cities strongly defended, they concluded that they could not possibly succeed in the attempt, passionately wished that they had died in the wilderness, and proposed to return again into Egypt. For this God had ordered them to return; and had declared that, except his two faithful servants, Caleb and Joshua, they should all die in the wilderness; and the Lord had further shewn his indignation by executing immediate judgment upon the other ten persons who had gone to search the land. Hereupon they were in great tribulation; they made a loud

VOL. III.

U

mourning and lamentation. Like Esau, they lifted up their voice and wept, but with as little of true repentance and humiliation in their hearts, as he had. They changed their minds entirely; they would now do what God required, and he should reverse his sentence against them. They would not delay a moment, they would go up immediately to attack the Canaanites. We read, that "The people mourned greatly, and they rose up early in the morning and gat them up into the top of the mountain, saying, Lo we be here, and will go up unto the place which the Lord hath promised; for we have sinned." Now their determination had been a good one, if indeed they had deeply felt their sin, and shewn a submissive spirit, and prayed that the Lord would permit them to go up, and be with them in their expedition. But there was no such spirit of submission, and prayer, and waiting upon God. They were in haste to settle the matter in their own way, thinking that they had nothing to do but to act as they ought to have done at the first, and all would be well. But God would

« PreviousContinue »